CHAPTER THIRTY
The union proved to be housed in a rambling old building in a rundown suburb, with nothing on the outside to show what it was, though I could now spot that the people hanging around smoking on the front porch were working girls and guys. I wondered for a moment if I was looking like them too, kind of dazed at being out in the sunlight.
Jarrod pushed the front door open and stood back to let past a young woman with the most beautiful mane of waist-length true blonde hair that I had ever seen. She was carrying a large brown paper bag, and Jarrod murmured, “Supplies,” an explanation.
The woman behind the counter said, “Do you want the shop, loves, or are you here to see someone?”
“We want to see someone,” Jarrod said. “And Jude needs to join up.”
“Sure thing,” the woman said, and she pushed a form across to me. “Fill that out, love. You don’t have to tell us your real name or anything, try to remember which name you’re using with us, that’s all.”
I filled it out. I already had an anonymous-looking email account, left over from when I had fans and fanmail and needed to hide, so that was fine.
I handed the form back and counted out the cash the staff had given me as a cute woman in a miniskirt, stockings and garters, boots and bitten-off T-shirt appeared from an office.
“Bella, have you got an appointment now?” the receptionist called out, handing me a receipt and membership card.
Bella shook her head, jangling many body piercings. “No. Come on through, boys,” she said to Jarrod and I.
We followed her into a tiny office and she slid behind the desk and waved at the two worn out office chairs opposite her.
“What’s up?”
I handed her over the ex-parte order and said, “This got served to me yesterday. I need to see an attorney.”
She flicked through the papers. “I’ll ring around the usual suspects and see who can take you on.”
She picked up the phone and pulled a printout across the desk towards the phone and dialed. “Hello,” she said, and she replaced her drawl with a cultured voice. “This is Bella. I’ve got a client here who needs a pro-bono attorney. Do you have space?”
She made the same call four times, then smiled at Jarrod and I. “It’s a family law matter, an ex-parte order barring access, so it’s urgent,” she explained to the fifth receptionist.
“Excellent.” She glanced down at the order in front of her. “Sebastian Everett. He’ll be there. And thank you.”
She put the phone down and wrote a quick note. “Four this afternoon. Here’s the address. You need to take any paperwork you’ve got, and the order.”
“You got me an attorney that fast?” I said. “Thank you.”
“No problems, hon. We’re used to people coming in here who are about to be deported or jailed. Anything else I can do for you?”
Jarrod shook his head. “No, we’ll wander down to the clinic now. Thanks for helping.”
Jarrod led me back through the building, past a large room with shelves to the ceiling. “Supplies,” he said. “If you ever need to buy anything.”
I figured out what Jarrod was saying. Supplies: condoms and lube and dams, and other stuff. It all made sense now. “Cheaper here?” I asked.
Jarrod nodded. “Yes. $22 a gross for condoms. Far cheaper than anywhere else. And if you’re broke, they’ll let you have it free.”
When I looked sideways at Jarrod, Jarrod was trying not to laugh. Under the circumstances, him telling me where to buy condoms was appropriate.
Jarrod took me into a waiting room and said, “Grab a number from the machine.”
There was a ticket dispenser on the wall, and I took a card, then sat down beside Jarrod. The room looked like every doctor’s waiting room I had ever been in with uncomfortable chairs around the wall and tattered magazines. I sat down beside Jarrod and picked up a magazine, hoping like crazy no one I knew was in it.
There was a young woman sitting opposite tus, pale and thin, and she looked as worn out as I felt. Her eyes slid over Jarrod and I as if we weren’t there, and I was grateful. Considering where I was, and why, I couldn’t think of a better time to be anonymous.
When the doctor called my number, I followed her into a shabby office and sat down on the chair she waved to. She was young and as tired-looking as the young woman in the waiting room had been.
“I’m Holly. Have you been here before?” she asked me, and I shook my head.
“No, the first time.”
She took a large sheet of a card out of her drawer. “What’s your name?” she said. “Your working name. And do you work for yourself or someone else?”
“Jude Freeman and I work at Club Jade.”
She nodded. “Rarely see any of Eamon’s boys here. I thought he used his own doctor these days.”
“Ah, I didn’t want to wait for Thursday,” I said.
“Sure. Have you had any high-risk exposures since you last had testing done?”
I nodded. “Yes. Recreationally, not professionally.”
“Not smart,” she said. “But I guess you know that. OK, take your jeans and underwear off and hop up on the table while I set up. Have you had your Hep B shots?”
“No,” I said, standing up and undoing my jeans and trying not to watch the doctor set up a stainless steel tray of swabs. I had Chlamydia swabs done before, and it hurt. It hadn’t occurred to me that Jarrod must have this done once a week.
“I’ll take your levels when I take blood and give you your first shot today. You need to come back in one month and five months for further shots to get decent coverage. Now, hop up and put the paper towel over you and let’s get this done.”
I clambered up onto the examination table and covered myself up with the inadequate paper towel. She chatted while she worked, and I guessed that if she spent all day, every day, swabbing people’s genitals, she’d get good at small talk. We discussed the Mets’ chances while she swabbed my throat; then talked about decent restaurants in LA and I stared at the ceiling while she did urethral swabs. Somehow, we had moved on to globalization by the time I had laid down on my side and pulled my knees up so she could do anal swabs.
I sat up and she took two vials of blood from my arm and added that to the samples she had put into a plastic infectious substances bag.
The Hep B shot was last, and I rubbed my biceps through my shirt while she disposed of everything she’d used and washed her hands.
“All done,” she said. “Ring up at midday tomorrow, the clinic number is on your union card, and I’ll give you your blood serum results then. The swabs and scrapes take an extra day to process. Don’t have unprotected sex, recreationally or professionally. Don’t. You don’t want to join the viral clinic I run on Fridays.”
“I don’t think it’ll be happening again,” I said as I pulled my clothes back on.
She smiled at me. “If he’s the pretty boy waiting with you, I hope that's not because you won't be seeing him again.”
I colored at her comment when she opened the door and let me back out into the waiting room when Jarrod looked up from the magazine he had been reading.